For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:3)
THE CROSS IS CENTRAL in the apostolic proclamation of the gospel. Paul said to the Corinthians, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). To the Galatians, he wrote: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).
When we meditate on the cross, our thoughts are often taken up with the details of Jesus’ physical suffering. This is not inappropriate, but neither is it Paul’s principal focus. When he rehearses the essential components of his message in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul highlights not the manner of Christ’s death with a gory description of its violence and shame, but the meaning— its theological significance. “He died for our sins” (v. 4).
Jesus did not die for his own sins, for he had none. He had committed no crime. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that
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